October 30, 2003

• Here's some news I find hard to believe:
  

  A federal judge “rejected Microsoft’s post-trial claim that Eolas had misrepresented the facts in the patent case, which claimed the software giant had stolen browser technology relating to plug-ins. The ruling came after a $521 million verdict against the software giant last month, and ends Microsoft’s first attempt to challenge the result.”

  Besides paying over half a billion dollars to the patent holder, Microsoft is supposed to cripple its market-leading browser so that IE/Windows will no longer seamlessly play Flash, Quicktime, RealVideo, or Adobe Acrobat files, Java applets, and other rich media formats. Once the company does this, any site that uses these technologies will no longer work in the browser most people use.

  And here's Microsoft's solution
  

  User Experience for Affected Web Pages

  By default, users are prompted with a dialog box prior to loading each ActiveX control on an affected Web page. When the user clicks OK in this dialog box, the control loads normally.

  So basically, for every element that's a plug-in, you'll have to click OK in a little dialog box.

  Part of me is happy to see MS get the pointy end. Another part of me knows that MS' stop-gap solution is designed to annoy users into rising up against the ruling and hopefully effect the outcome of their appeal. And still another part of me is glad I use a better browser anyway.

  • 5:34 am
  • 2 Comments